February 2018 Around Town

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January 28, 2018

Grovewood Village Holiday Sip & Shop

Grovewood Gallery’s annual Holiday Sip & Shop event brought artists and their crafts to the public last December. Local patrons shopped unique holiday gifts handcrafted by local and regional artists, as well as a large collection of American-made art and craft. Holiday shoppers enjoyed complimentary wine, warm cider and cookies. Local artists Patricia Cotterill (painting) and Karen Kennedy (needle felting) also performed craft demonstrations and chatted with guests.

Glamour on Board: Fashion from Titanic the Movie

Costumes from the Oscar-winning Titanic will star in the first large-scale exhibition inside America’s largest home when Biltmore launches Glamour on Board: Fashion from Titanic the Movie. Opening Feb. 9, 2018, this exhibition of fashions features hats, gowns, jewelry and tuxedos worn by Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kathy Bates and others filling the grand rooms once lived in by George and Edith Vanderbilt. With these garments, Biltmore’s guests will have perfect examples of the luxurious wardrobes favored by transatlantic travelers like the Vanderbilts in the early 1900s. Parallels between the film and Biltmore don’t stop there. The exhibition will include the story of the Vanderbilts’ own plans to sail on Titanic’s maiden voyage. At the last minute, they decided to sail instead on Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic. Biltmore is the only location to see these Oscar-winning costumes on display. The exhibition will run through May 13, 2018.

My Big Black America at The Asheville Art Museum

The Asheville Art Museum recently acquired a new work titled My Big Black America by artist Wesley Clark through its newly formed Acquisition Response Team (A.R.T.), a support network for acquiring prominent and exciting works of art that require rapid funding and quick decision-making. Intricately detailed, My Big Black America consists of a variety of wood, including both manufactured wood used in household furniture and unworked, natural wood. As Clark explains, “Old wood is the base of the construction and acts as a metaphor for those from which America’s foundation was built—black slaves and low-paid industrial workers. Newer segments of wood are the younger generation creating what is the surface of the USA today.” In keeping with other works by Clark, My Big Black America aims to encourage viewers to think about race on both a national and personal level. Shaped like a map of the United States, the work makes a statement about the Museum’s focus on collecting American art and is in dialogue with other works in the Museum’s Collection.